Clip Zip theme: Beer Box

[Crafty]

Double press [Home] or [pause ] to display Track titles.  Press [submenu] to display full album art while in WPS.

Beer Box is a retro theme that animates the hassle of programming music before digital media and MTV(we only had 3 TV stations).  Because of the hassle, the work load was shared and programming music was a daily social event where people meet to jam to spinning disk.  These vinyl disc where big and fragile  and many studious collectors opted to use a beer box to store and transport their collection.

To play a random track, back in the day, first you had to fan thru the box of album.  Albums could be recognize by the top few inches of the album cover.  Then, the disc was removed from the album cover and sleeve.  The album cover displayed by leaning against the front of beer box while the album was being played.

The Album Box (theme) background is a beer box in front a poster of the Earth above the Moon's surface courtesy of Apollo 8/ www.nasahistory.com and a corner of another poster. (i'm using a budweiser box image, Ferrah Fawcett poster(just legs) and a easy rider poster witch can not be distribute).

recommended setting:
General Setting->Display settings:  Backlight minimum 20sec and Caption Backlight ->yes (to see next track to be played screen)

WPS display cycle:
Skip track screen

Track title screen

Album in beer box

Album out of beer box (full AA)

Album in beer box

Background screen

Next track screen


Other screens:
EQ Dump in Shortcut menu

To access the theme's EQ dump a file or folder must be "Add to Shortcut Menu".   Then the Shortcut Menu can be access thru main menu.  Or a long [home] press can access Shortcut Menu if setting is configured Use Shortcuts Menu Instead of Quick Screen.

Playlist screen displays last selected playlist name (or 'Dynamic') and track title count:



Programmable Battery Level Icon
was created to hide icon until the battery needed charging.
When I'm playing poker I need the icon to display below 50%.  For casual use 33%.
This code can be modified and is located near the beginning of the FMS and WPS file.

(it's been moved to the top of the screen)
beer_box_**.wps and beer_box_**.fms code:
### Configure Service Battery Light use x=on o=off
%?bl<|%Vd(x)|%Vd(x)|%Vd(o)|%Vd(o)|%Vd(o)|%Vd(o)|%Vd(x)>     
#   <|0  16%|17 33%|34 49%|50 66%|67 83%|84 99%|100%  >

Full Album Track Title and Progress Bar (hackable option)
is coded but is disable by "#".  To enable remove the "#"

beer_box_**.wps
#### Full Album Art display Track title and progress bar (optional)
#%Vl(g,3,86,90,8,0)%t(14);%ac%s%t(1000)%?it<%it|%fn>
#%Vl(g,0,82,96,2,-)%t(14);%t(1000)%pb(0,0,96,2,p)
 
Background modifcation:
To modify the "Beer Box" background, it's a bit tricky.  The theme does not support the standard background image that is found in \background folder.  Box.bmp can be found in .rockbox\wps\beer_box_**\ folder.   If you need to display the box.bmp, press [pause] and press [home] and [select] together (keylock).
(%VB was used to render the box.bmp into the background page.  This way the box.bmp is only displayed in the WPS <play> screen. )

[Crafty]

ALBUM_BOX_lg for reading glasses or not reading glasses using mix fonts.

I'm still doing themes in two variants.  Small fonts and mix fonts (for reading glasses users).
I've added a few new feature to ALBUM_BOX_lg to make more bifocal.  New features may not supported by the devs and may disappear in future release.

PLAYLIST fonts
Long press [submenu] to access playlist screen in small font that are set in the SBS file.


Long press the [select] to enter WPS context menu and press [select] again to access playlist screen in User selected font.

 

FILE BROWSER  fonts
When accessing file browser thru the main menu, small font is used that are set in the SBS file.


If the Shortcut menu is use to access file browser then User selected fonts is used.


EQ DUMP fonts
The EQ dump displays band 0(1st), band 5 and band 9(last) in large font for 2sec before displaying the complete EQ in ting font.  This shows the EQ curve and I can recognize witch preset is used without the using my reading glasses.
 

BEER_BOX_lg.sbs code should be easy to convert to 5band or other EQ formates:
# EQ dump large font 
%Vl(q,0,16,-,25,3)%ac%s%t(2)%St(eq band 0 gain) %St(eq band 5 gain) %St(eq band 9 gain);%t(1000)

[[Saint]]

For what its worth, there is no reason to draw into the backdrop buffer just to have separate backdrops for specific screens, each screen (.(r)fms, .(r)sbs, .(r)wps) can call its own backdrop, should you want to, it needn't be configured by the theme .cfg.

Example:

Code: [Select]

# .fms
#
%X(backdrop.bmp)


# .sbs
#
%X(another_backdrop.bmp)


# .wps
#
%X(yet_another_backdrop.bmp)

...and so on.


[Saint]

[Crafty]

For what its worth, there is no reason to draw into the backdrop buffer just to have separate backdrops for specific screens, each screen (.(r)fms, .(r)sbs, .(r)wps) can call its own backdrop, should you want to, it needn't be configured by the theme .cfg.

Example:

Code: [Select]

# .fms
#
%X(backdrop.bmp)


# .sbs
#
%X(another_backdrop.bmp)


# .wps
#
%X(yet_another_backdrop.bmp)

...and so on.


[Saint]

Sure there is.
If you pause this theme, no backdrop and there is scrolling text.  Can't do that with the stardard %X backdrop.

This is something Saint([edit]oops, it was your reply) started a thread on.  You can have more than one Backdrop in the WPS.

[[Saint]]

I would rather like to see your theme code then.

The behaviour you report seems to suggest you're "Doing It Wrong (TM)" (please, don't take this personally). Perhaps I am not parsing your wording correctly...but neither pausing, nor scrolling text, should have any effect on the backdrop at all. There should be nothing stopping you from displaying a full screen viewport conditional to the pause state, and scrolling text therein. My immediate thought is overlapping viewports that share the same conditional state.


[Saint]

[Crafty]

iirc, when a image is loaded into background using %VB ex.

%Vl(d,0,0,-,-,-)%VB%xd(b)  #Load Box art

the background image is removed when %mp changes, volume and exiting WPS.
You can see this when pressing pause or volume.

This was the easy part.

Perhaps I am not parsing your wording correctly...but neither pausing, nor scrolling text, should have any effect on the backdrop at all. There should be nothing stopping you from displaying a full screen viewport conditional to the pause state, and scrolling text therein.

I could of use %X and Black out the backdrop by loading a 'blackout' image in forground.  However, scrolling test would of ripped the forground image.

That's why I opted to use %VB...it is a conditional background instruction.

I did test %VB and %X to gether.  But it would of taken some time to get it right.